ANNE CLARK Synaesthesia – Classics Re-Worked CD-Review

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ANNE CLARK recently turned 61. It is quite possible that the musician and poet is happy to have passed the past year. After all, she not only had to struggle with the corona virus like all of us, but to make matters worse, she was also life-threatening with cancer. But now “Synaesthesia” appears – an examination of 14 songs by the New Wave icon, which gives hope that the Briton has completely recovered. Because even if a large part of the work on the ANNE-CARK classics was initially on the shoulders of the musicians involved, the spoken word master was of course significantly involved in – let’s call it – the revision of her songs.

In the case of the track “The Hardest Heart” there was already a collaboration between the German DJ duo BLANK & JONES and ANNE CLARK in 2002. She herself released a version on her 2008 “The Smallest Acts of Kindness”. If Anne was reluctant to go it alone, the DJs asked for the dance floor immediately in the early noughties, and the gentlemen are cheering them on with their 2021 Revisit mix even more! You can literally hear how the boys are missing the big party and I’m sure that the black community would go really steep with this driving number! Clearly my favorite, while Anne opted for “Wallies” in MR B’s Kickin ‘Mix. Misses Clark has already worked with this musician on the EPs “Fairytailes From The Underground” (2014) and “Life Wires” (2015), and with the piece from 1983’s “Changing Places”, MR B has really chosen a classic that this year with a lot of drive comes along. Meanwhile, the hypnotic “Take Control” is a song that ANNE CLARK only recently worked on at the invitation of DJ SOLOMUN. “Entire World” in the ballad mix with THOMAS RÜCKOLDT from Jena is also more recent. Originally the number was part of the joint “Stop Brexit” single from 2019 and at the same time it also quotes Schiller’s poem “An die Freude”. The two artists already worked together on Anne’s long player “Homage – The Silence Inside” in 2018. In addition to the quiet ballad mix, the second CD also features the danceable Unity Mix. “Orange Suns” also comes from a collaboration with MR B, this time from 2018 and in a more experimental, dystopian guise. ANDREAS BRUHN (ex-THE SISTERS OF MERCY) and the background singer EMILY FALLS have chosen a real crowd-pleaser from 1985’s “Pressure Points”, which is presented here in a decelerated, cool-looking variation. The German synth-pop duo SEA OF SIN gave “Sometimes” an exciting atmosphere with guitar sounds, while Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson aka YAGYA “Waiting” gives Icelandic vibes and arctic coolness. For “Hope Road” from 1987’s “Hopeless Cases”, ANNE CLARK hired Canadian Scott Montieth, who is better known to most as the electronica freak DEADBEAT. His work on Hope Road is a little too extreme for my taste; even the Latino / Afro-Brazilian beats that JOHANNES BRECHT added to the reduced “Virtuality” (published in 1995 on “To Love And Be Loved”) cannot completely convince me. SVENSYNTETICS, which is part of the LIQUID SKY ARTIST COLLECTIVE, is much closer to me with its subtly nuanced variant of “A Community of The Spirit”. He is honored that the German producer, DJ, composer and label boss MARC ROMBOY performs “Our Darkness” in the ‘Respect Mix’. Perhaps he was also aware that he would never get close to the original from 1984. “Sleeper In Metropolis” from 1983 is another piece that is difficult to mislead. The German techno DJ and producer ROBIN HIRTE tried his luck here and actually managed to create a contemporary remix.

For four decades, ANNE CLARK has stood for rousing music with considerable relevance and, like no other artist, for an extraordinary continuity in the New Wave. No wonder there are so many colleagues who use their songs as inspiration. This even includes the bad boys from RAMMSTEIN, who are not featured on “Synaesthesia”, but who were accused of plagiarizing ANNE CLARK’s “Our Darkness” on their song “Deutschland”. Anne, however, saw no reason for the general excitement and only said that she had other, more important things to do than to speak of plagiarism in every arpeggio synth intro. Instead, as with “Synaesthesia – Classics Re-Worked”, she prefers to give her musician friends the demanding task of taking on her songs.

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